I don' t hunt moose or elk: I hunt goats and pigs here in Hawaii and both breed year round so you can always find mammas with babys. After a while you get to being able to tell if the babys are old enough to survive without the mom.

With feral goats, I do not shoot nannys with young babys. Only if it' s a big nanny with an older baby, around 20 pounds will I consider shooting a mamma. Any smaller than that and the bond between mamma and baby is still really strong. Still it' s not for everyone as it can be sad watching the baby looking for it' s mamma. I usually only take a mamma if im having a bad day and couldn' t get any other goat. I guess I should mention that the place I' m hunting has a huge overpopulation of goats so we have a very good chance of taking 2 goats in a day for meat.

Pig' s are somewhat different. It' s not very often that I get a pig with bow down here (maybe twice a year) and if I get a chance at a sow with piglets, I will take it so long as the piglets are at least ten pounds at which age, they should easily survive. Any smaller and I will let them go. But I will not hesitate to shoot any baby pig over 25 pounds. [>:]